In General Nelson's division, you see nearest the river Colonel Ammen's brigade, consisting of the Thirty-sixth Indiana, Sixth and Twenty-fourth Ohio; next, Colonel Bruer's brigade, First, Second, and Twentieth Kentucky; next, Colonel Hazen's brigade, Ninth Indiana, Sixth Kentucky, and Forty-first Ohio. Colonel Ammen's brigade arrived in season to take part in the contest at the ravine on Sunday evening.

General Crittenden's division had two brigades: General Boyle's and Colonel W. L. Smith's. General Boyle had the Nineteenth and Fifty-ninth Ohio, and Ninth and Thirteenth Kentucky. Colonel Smith's was composed of the Thirteenth Ohio, and Eleventh and Twenty-sixth Kentucky, with Mendenhall's battery, belonging to the United States Regular Army, and Bartlett's Ohio battery.

General McCook's division had three brigades. The first was commanded by General Rousseau, consisting of the First Ohio, Sixth Indiana, Third Kentucky, and battalions of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Nineteenth Regular Infantry. The second brigade was commanded by Brigadier-General Gibson, and consisted of the Thirty-second and Thirty-ninth Indiana, and Forty-ninth Ohio. The third brigade was commanded by Colonel Kirk, and consisted of the Thirty-fourth Illinois, Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Indiana, and Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania.

General Lewis Wallace's division, which had been reorganized after the battle of Fort Donelson, now consisted of three brigades. The first was commanded by Colonel Morgan L. Smith, and consisted of the Eighth Missouri, Eleventh and Twenty-fourth Indiana, and Thurber's Missouri battery. The second brigade was commanded by Colonel Thayer, and contained the same regiments that checked the Rebels at the brook west of Fort Donelson,—the First Nebraska, Twenty-third and Sixty-eighth Ohio, with Thompson's Indiana battery. The third brigade was commanded by Colonel Whittlesey, and was composed of the Twentieth, Fifty-sixth, Seventy-sixth, and Seventy-eighth Ohio.

Two brigades of General Wood's division arrived during the day, but not in season to take part in the battle.

Beauregard's brigades were scattered during the night. They had retired in confusion before the terrible fire at the ravine from the gunboats. Officers were hunting for their troops, and soldiers were searching for their regiments, through the night. The work of reorganizing was going on when the pickets at daylight were driven in by the advance of the Union line.

Beauregard, Bragg, Hardee, and Polk all slept near the church. There was no regularity of divisions, brigades, or regiments. Ruggles was west of the church with two of his brigades. Trabue's brigade of Breckenridge's reserves was there. Breckenridge, with his other brigades, or what was left of them, was east of the church, also the shattered fragments of Withers's division. Gladden's brigade had crumbled to pieces, and Colonel Deas, commanding it, was obliged to pick up stragglers of all regiments. Russell and Stewart were near Prentiss's camp. Cheatham was in the vicinity, but his regiments were dwindled to companies, and scattered over all the ground.

Beauregard had established a strong rear-guard, and had issued orders to shoot all stragglers. The order was rigidly enforced, and the runaways were brought back and placed in line. Although exhausted, disorganized, and checked, the Rebels had not lost heart. They were confident of victory, and at once rallied when they found the Union army was advancing.

Look once more at the position of the divisions. Nelson is on the ground over which Stuart and Hurlburt retreated. Crittenden is where Prentiss was captured, McCook where McClernand made his desperate stand, and Lewis Wallace where Sherman's line gave way.

The gunboats, by their constant fire during the night, had compelled the Rebels to fall back in front of Nelson. It was a little after five o'clock when Nelson threw forward his skirmishers, and advanced his line. He came upon the Rebels half-way out to Lick Creek, near the peach-orchard. The fight commenced furiously. Beauregard was marching brigades from his left, and placing them in position for a concentrated attack to gain the Landing. General Crittenden had not advanced, and Nelson was assailed by a superior force. He held his ground an hour, but he had no battery. He had been compelled to leave it at Savannah. He sent an aid to General Buell requesting artillery. Mendenhall was sent. He arrived just in time to save the brigade from an overwhelming onset. The Rebels were advancing when he unlimbered his guns, but his quick discharges of grape at short range threw them into confusion.

It astonished General Beauregard. He had not expected it. He was to attack and annihilate Grant, not be attacked and driven.[20] He ordered up fresh troops from his reserves, and the contest raged with increased fury.

[Footnote 20: Beauregard's Report.]

Nelson, seeing the effect of Mendenhall's fire, threw Hazen's brigade forward. It came upon the battery which had been cutting them to pieces. With a cheer they sprang upon the guns, seized them, commenced turning them upon the fleeing enemy. The Rebel line rallied and came back, followed by fresh troops. There was a short, severe struggle, and Hazen was forced to leave the pieces and fall back. Then the thunders rolled again. The woods were sheets of flame.[21] The Rebels brought up more of their reserves, and forced Nelson to yield his position. He fell back a short distance, and again came into position. He was a stubborn man,—a Kentuckian, a sailor, who had been round the world. His discipline was severe. His men had been well drilled, and were as stubborn as their leader.

[Footnote 21: Nelson's Report.]

"Send me another battery, quick!" was his request, made to General Buell.

Tirrell's battery, which had just landed from a steamer, went up the hill, through the woods, over stumps and trees, the horses leaping as if they had caught the enthusiasm of the commander of the battery. Captain Tirrell had a quick eye.

"Into position there. Lively, men! Caissons to the rear!" were his words of command. The gunners sprang from the carriages to the ground. The caissons wheeled, bringing the heads of the horses towards the Landing, trotted off eight or ten rods and took position sheltered by a ridge of land. Captain Tirrell rode from gun to gun.

"Fire with shell, two-second fuses," he said to the lieutenants commanding his two ten-pounder Parrott guns.

"Grape and canister," he said to the officers commanding the four brass twelve-pounders. Its fire was terrific. Wherever his guns were turned there was silence along the Rebel lines. Their musketry ceased. Their columns staggered back. All the while Mendenhall was pounding them. The Nineteenth Ohio, from Crittenden's division, came down upon the run, joined the brigade, and the contest went on again. The Rebels, instead of advancing, began to lose the ground they had already won.

Crittenden and McCook advanced a little later. They came upon the enemy, which had quiet possession of McClernand's and Sherman's camps. Beauregard's head-quarters were there. The Rebels, finding themselves assailed, made a desperate effort to drive back the advancing columns. Rousseau advanced across the open field, over the ground so hotly contested by McClernand the day before. This movement made a gap between McCook and Crittenden. Beauregard saw it, threw Cheatham and Withers into the open space. They swung round square against Rousseau's left, pouring in a volley which staggered the advancing regiments. The Thirty-second Indiana regiment, Colonel Willich commanding, was on the extreme right of McCook's division. They had been in battle before, and were ordered across to meet the enemy. You see them fly through the woods in rear of Rousseau's brigade. They are upon the run. They halt, dress their ranks as if upon parade, and charge upon the Rebels. Colonel Stambough's Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania follows. Then all of Kirk's brigade. It is a change of position and a change of front, admirably executed, just at the right time, for Rousseau is out of ammunition, and is obliged to fall back. McCook's third brigade, General Gibson, comes up. Rousseau is ready again, and at eleven o'clock you see every available man of that division contending for the ground around the church. Meanwhile Wallace is moving over the ground on the extreme right, where Sherman fought so bravely. Sherman, Hurlburt, and the shattered regiments of W. H. L. Wallace's division, now commanded by McArthur, follow in reserve. Driven back by Nelson, the Rebel forces concentrate once more around the church for a final struggle. Wallace watches his opportunities. He gains a ridge. His men drop upon the ground, deliver volley after volley, rise, rush nearer to the enemy, drop once more, while the grape and canister sweep over them. Thus they come to close quarters, and then regiment after regiment rises, and delivers its fire. It is like the broadsides of a man-of-war.

The time had come for a general advance. Nelson, Crittenden, McCook, Wallace, almost simultaneously charged upon the enemy. It was too powerful to be resisted. The Rebels gave way, retreated from the camps which they had occupied a single night, fled past the church, across the brook, up through the old cotton-field on the south side, to the shelter of the forest on the top of the ridge beyond. The battle was lost to them. Exultant cheers rang through the forest for the victory won.

If I were to go through all the details, as I might, and write how Crittenden's brigades pressed on, and captured Rebel batteries; how the Rebels tried to overwhelm him; how the tide of battle surged from hill to hill; how the Rebels tried to cut McCook to pieces; how Wallace's division flanked the enemy at Owl Creek; how Rousseau's brigade fought in front of McClernand's camp; how the Fifth Kentucky charged upon a battery, and captured two guns which were cutting them up with grape and canister, and four more which were disabled and could not be dragged off by the enemy; how Colonel Willich, commanding the Thirty-second Indiana, finding some of his men were getting excited, stopped firing, and drilled them, ordering, presenting, and supporting arms, with the balls whistling through his ranks; how the men became cool and steady, and went in upon a charge at last with a wild hurrah, and a plunge of the bayonet that forced the Rebels to give up McClernand's camp; how Colonel Ammen coolly husked ears of corn for his horse, while watching the fight, with the shells falling all around him; how Colonel Kirk seized a flag and bore it in advance of his brigade; how Color-Sergeant William Ferguson of the Thirteenth Missouri was shot down, how Sergeant Beem of Company C seized the flag before it touched the ground, and advanced it still farther; how Beauregard was riding madly along the lines by the church, trying to rally his men, when Thurber's battery opened, and broke them up again; how, at noon, he saw it was no use; how he drew off his men, burned his own camp, and went back to Corinth, defeated, his troops disheartened, leaving his killed and hundreds of his wounded on the field; how the Union army recovered all the cannon lost on Sunday;—if I were to write it all out, I should have no room to tell you what Commodore Foote was doing all this time on the Mississippi.

It was a terrible fight. The loss on each side was nearly equal,—about thirteen thousand killed, wounded, and missing, or twenty-six thousand in all.

I had a friend killed in the fight on Sunday,—Captain Carson, commanding General Grant's scouts. He was tall and slim, and had sparkling black eyes. He had travelled all over Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, had often been in the Rebel camps. He was brave, almost fearless, and very adroit. He said to a friend, when the battle began in the morning, that he should not live through the day. But he was very active, riding recklessly through showers of bullets. It was just at sunset when he rode up to General Grant with a despatch from General Buell. He dismounted, and sat down upon a log to rest, but the next moment his head was carried away by a cannon-ball. He performed his duties faithfully, and gave his life willingly to his country.

You have seen how the army was surprised, how desperately it fought, how the battle was almost lost, how the gunboats beat back the exultant Rebels, how the victory was won. Beauregard was completely defeated; but he telegraphed to Jefferson Davis that he had won a great victory. This is what he telegraphed—

"CORINTH, April 8th, 1862.

"TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR, RICHMOND:—

"We have gained a great and glorious victory. Eight to ten thousand prisoners and thirty-six pieces of cannon. Buell reinforced Grant, and we retired to our intrenchments at Corinth, which we can hold. Loss heavy on both sides.

"BEAUREGARD."

You see that, having forsworn himself to his country, he did not hesitate to send a false despatch, to mislead the Southern people and cover up his mortifying defeat.

The Rebel newspapers believed Beauregard's report. One began its account thus:—

"Glory! glory! glory! victory! victory! I write from Yankee papers. Of all the victories that have ever been on record, ours is the most complete. Bull Run was nothing in comparison to our victory at Shiloh. General Buell is killed, General Grant wounded and taken prisoner. Soon we will prove too much for them, and they will be compelled to let us alone. Our brave boys have driven them to the river, and compelled them to flee to their gunboats. The day is ours."[22]

[Footnote 22: Captain Geer.]

The people of the South believed all this; but when the truth was known their hopes went down lower than ever, for they saw it was a disastrous defeat.

On the Sabbath after the battle, the chaplains of the regiments had religious exercises. How different the scene! Instead of the cannonade, there were prayers to God. Instead of the musketry, there were songs of praise. There were tears shed for those who had fallen, but there were devout thanksgivings that they had given their lives so freely for their country and for the victory they had achieved by their sacrifice.

One of the chaplains, in conducting the service, read a hymn, commencing:

"Look down, O Lord, O Lord forgive; Let a repenting rebel live."

But he was suddenly interrupted by a patriotic soldier, who cried, "No sir, not unless they lay down their arms, every one of them."

He thought the chaplain had reference to the Rebels who had been defeated.

After the battle, a great many men and women visited the ground, searching for the bodies of friends who had fallen. Lieutenant Pfieff, an officer of an Illinois regiment, was killed, and his wife came to obtain his body. No one knew where he was buried. The poor woman wandered through the forest, examining all the graves. Suddenly a dog, poor and emaciated, bounded towards her, his eyes sparkling with pleasure, and barking his joy to see his mistress. When her husband went to the army, the dog followed him, and was with him through the battle, watched over his dead body through the terrible contest, and after he was buried, remained day and night a mourner! He led his mistress to the spot. The body was disinterred. The two sorrowful ones, the devoted wife and the faithful brute, watched beside the precious dust till it was laid in its final resting-place beneath the prairie-flowers.



CHAPTER IX.

EVACUATION OF COLUMBUS.

The Rebels, at the beginning of the war fortified Columbus, in Kentucky, which is twenty miles below Cairo on the Mississippi River. There the bluffs are very high, and are washed at their base by the mighty stream. Cannon placed on the summit have long range. A great deal of labor was expended to make it an impregnable place. There were batteries close down to the water under the hill, with heavy guns. A gallery was cut along the side of the bluff, a winding, zigzag passage, which, with many crooks and turns, led to the top of the hill. They had numerous guns in position on the top, to send shot and shell down upon Commodore Foote, should he attempt to descend the river. They built a long line of earthworks to protect the rear, intrenchments and stockades,—which are strong posts set in the ground, making a close fence, with holes here and there through which the riflemen and sharpshooters could fire.

They cut down the trees and made abatis. There were several lines of defence. They stretched a great iron chain across the river, supporting it by barges which were anchored in the stream. They gave out word that the river was effectually closed against commerce till the independence of the Confederacy was recognized.



When the war commenced, there was a man named Maury, a lieutenant in the United States service, and who was connected with the National Observatory in Washington. He was thought to be a scientific, practical man. He had been educated by the government, had received great pay, and was in a high position; but he forgot all that, and joined the Rebels. He imitated General Floyd, and stole public property, carrying off from the National Observatory valuable scientific papers which did not belong to him. He was employed by the Rebel government to construct torpedoes and infernal machines for blowing up Commodore Foote's gunboats. He had several thousand made,—some for the land, which were planted around Columbus in rear of the town, and which were connected with a galvanic battery by a telegraph wire, to be exploded at the right moment, by which he hoped to destroy thousands of the Union troops. He sunk several hundred in the river opposite Columbus. They were oblong cylinders of wrought iron, four or five feet in length; inside were two or three hundred pounds of powder. Two small anchors held the cylinder in its proper place. It was air tight, and therefore floated in the water. At the upper end there was a projecting iron rod, which was connected with a percussion gun-lock. If anything struck the rod with much force, it would trip the lock, and explode the powder. At least, Mr. Maury thought so. The above engraving will show the construction of the torpedoes, and how they were placed in the water. The letter A represents the iron rod reaching up almost to the surface of the water. At B it is connected with the lock, which is inside the cylinder, and not represented. C represents the powder. The arrows show the direction of the current.

One day he tried an experiment. He sunk a torpedo, and let loose a flat-boat, which came down with the current and struck the iron rod. The powder exploded and sent the flat high into the air. Thousands of Rebel soldiers stood on the bluffs and saw it. They hurrahed and swung their hats. Mr. Maury was so well pleased that the river was planted with them, above, in front, and below the town. He thought that Commodore Foote and all his gunboats would be blown out of the water if they attempted to descend the stream.

But the workmanship was rude. The parts were not put together with much skill. Mr. Maury showed that his science was not practical. He forgot that the river was constantly rising and falling, that sometimes the water would be so high the gunboats could glide over the iron rods with several feet between, he forgot that the powder would gather moisture and the locks become rusty.

It was discovered, after a while, that the torpedoes leaked, that the powder became damp, and changed to an inky mass, and that the hundreds of thousands of dollars which Mr. Maury had spent was all wasted. Then they who had supposed him to be a scientific man said he was a humbug.

The taking of Fort Donelson compelled the Rebels to evacuate Columbus,—the Gibraltar of the Mississippi, as they called it,—and all the work which had been done was of no benefit. Nashville was evacuated on the 27th of February. On the 4th of March Commodore Foote, having seen signs that the Rebels were leaving Columbus, went down the river, with six gunboats, accompanied by several transports, with troops, under General Sherman, to see about it. The Cincinnati, having been repaired, was the flag-ship. Commodore Foote requested me to accompany him, if I desired to.

"Perhaps we shall have hot work," he said, as I stepped on board in the evening of the 3d.

"We shall move at four o'clock," said Captain Stemble, commanding the ship, "and shall be at Columbus at daybreak."

It was a new and strange experience, that first night on a gunboat, with some probability that at daybreak I might be under a hot fire from a hundred Rebel guns. By the dim light of the lamp I could see the great gun within six feet of me, and shining cutlasses and gleaming muskets. Looking out of the ward-room, I could see the men in their hammocks asleep, like orioles in their hanging nests. The sentinels paced the deck above, and all was silent but the sound of the great wheel of the steamer turning lazily in the stream, and the gurgling of the water around the bow.

"We are approaching Columbus," said an officer. It was still some time to sunrise, but the men were all astir. Their hammocks were packed away. They were clearing the decks for action, running out the guns, bringing up shot and shell, tugging and pulling at the ropes. Going on deck, I could see in the dim light the outline of the bluff at Columbus. Far up stream were dark clouds of smoke from the other steamers.

Commodore Foote was on the upper deck, walking with crutches, still lame from the wound received at Donelson.

"I always feel an exhilaration of spirits before going into a fight. I don't like to see men killed; but when I have a duty to perform for my country, like this, all of my energies are engaged," said the Commodore.

Right opposite, on the Missouri shore, was the Belmont battle-ground, where General Grant fought his first battle, and where the gunboats saved the army.

There was a house riddled with cannon-shot; there was a hole in the roof as big as a bushel-basket, where the shell went in, and in the gable an opening large enough for the passage of a cart and oxen, where it came out. It exploded, and tore the end of the building to pieces.

One by one the boats came down. The morning brightened. We could see men on the bluff, and a flag flying. Were the Rebels there? We could not make out the flag. We dropped a little nearer. More men came in sight.

"Four companies of cavalry were sent out from Paducah on a reconnoissance day before yesterday. Perhaps the Rebels have all gone, and they are in possession of the place," said General Sherman.

"I will make a reconnoissance with a party of soldiers," he added. He jumped on board his tug, and went off to get his soldiers.

"Captain Phelps, you will please to take my tug and drop down also," said Commodore Foote. "If you are willing to run the risk, you are at liberty to accompany Captain Phelps," were his words to me. What is a thing worth that costs nothing?

We drop down the stream slowly and cautiously.

"We are in easy range. If the Rebels are there, they could trouble us," says Captain Phelps.

We drop nearer. The flag is still waving. The man holding it swings his hat.

They are not Rebels, but Union cavalry! Away we dash. The other tug, with General Sherman, is close behind.

"A little more steam! Lay her in quick!" says Captain Phelps.

He is not to be beaten. We jump ashore, scramble up the bank ahead of all the soldiers, reach the upper works, and fling out the Stars and Stripes to the bright morning sunshine on the abandoned works of the Rebel Gibraltar!

The crews of the boats crowd the upper decks, and send up their joyous shouts. The soldiers farther up stream give their wild hurrahs. Around us are smoking ruins,—burned barracks and storehouses, barrels of flour and bacon simmering in the fire. There are piles of shot and shell. The great chain has broken by its own weight. At the landing are hundreds of Mr. Maury's torpedoes,—old iron now. We wander over the town, along the fortifications, view the strong defences, and wonder that the Rebels gave it up,—defended as it was by one hundred and twenty guns,—without a struggle, but the fall of Fort Donelson compelled them to evacuate the place. They carried off about half of the guns, and tumbled many of those they left behind down the embankment into the river. The force which had fled numbered about sixteen thousand. Five thousand went down the river on steamboats, and the others were sent to Corinth on the cars.

This abandonment of Columbus freed Kentucky of Rebel troops. It had been invaded about six months, and Jeff Davis hoped to secure it as one of the Confederate States, but he was disappointed in his expectations. The majority of the people in that noble State could not be induced to go out of the Union.



CHAPTER X

OPERATIONS AT NEW MADRID.

There are many islands in the Mississippi, so many that the river pilots have numbered them from Cairo to New Orleans. The first is just below Cairo. No. 10 is about sixty miles below, where the river makes a sharp curve, sweeping round a tongue of land towards the west and northwest, then turning again at New Madrid, making a great bend towards the southeast, as you will see by the map. The island is less than a mile long, and not more than a fourth of a mile wide. It is ten or fifteen feet above high-water mark. The line between Kentucky and Tennessee strikes the river here. The current runs swiftly past the island, and steamboats descending the stream are carried within a stone's throw of the Tennessee shore. The bank on that side of the stream is also about fifteen or twenty feet above high water.

The Rebels, before commencing their works at Columbus, saw that Island No. 10 was a very strong position, and commenced fortifications there. When they evacuated Columbus, they retired to that place, and remounted the guns which they had brought away on the island and on the Tennessee shore. They thought it was a place which could not be taken. They held New Madrid, eight miles below, on the Missouri side, which was defended by two forts. They held the island and the Tennessee shore. East of their position, on the Tennessee shore, was Reelfoot Lake, a large body of water surrounded by hundreds of acres of impassable swamp, which extended across to the lower bend, preventing an approach by the Union troops from the interior of the State upon their flank. The garrison at the island, and in the batteries along the shore, had to depend upon steamboats for their supplies.

The distance across the lower promontory from the island to Tiptonville, along the border of Reelfoot Lake, is about five miles, but the distance from the island by the river to Tiptonville is over twenty miles.

On the 22d of February, General Pope, with several thousand men, left the little town of Commerce, which is above Cairo, on the Mississippi, for New Madrid, which is forty miles distant. It was a slow, toilsome march. The mud was very deep, and he could move scarcely five miles a day, but he reached New Madrid on the 3d of March, the day on which we raised the flag on the heights at Columbus.



The Rebels had completed their forts. The one above the town mounted fourteen heavy guns, and the one below it seven. Both were strong works, with bastions and angles, and ditches that could be swept by an enfilading fire. There was a line of intrenchments between the two forts, enclosing the town.

There were five regiments of infantry and several batteries of artillery, commanded by General McCown, at New Madrid. General Mackall was sent up by Beauregard to direct the defence there and at Island No. 10. When he arrived, he issued an address to the soldiers. He said:—

"Soldiers: We are strangers, commander and commanded, each to the other. Let me tell you who I am. I am a General made by Beauregard,—a General selected by Beauregard and Bragg for this command, when they knew it was in peril.

"They have known me for twenty years; together we stood on the fields of Mexico. Give them your confidence now; give it to me when I have earned it.

"Soldiers: The Mississippi Valley is intrusted to your courage, to your discipline, to your patience; exhibit the coolness and vigilance you have heretofore, and hold it."[23]

[Footnote 23: Rebellion Record.]

They thought they could hold the place. A Rebel officer wrote, on the 11th of March, to his friends thus: "General Mackall has put the rear in effective defence. The forts are impregnable. All are hopeful and ready. We will make this an American Thermopylae, if necessary."[24]

[Footnote 24: Memphis Appeal.]

By this he intended to say that they would all die before they would surrender the place, and would make New Madrid as famous in history as that narrow mountain-pass in Greece, where the immortal three hundred under Leonidas fought the Persian host.

The Rebels had several gunboats on the river, each carrying three or four guns. The river was very high, and its banks overflowed. The country is level for miles around, and it was an easy matter for the gunboats to throw shells over the town into the woods upon General Pope's army. The Rebels had over sixty pieces of heavy artillery, while General Pope had only his light field artillery; but he sent to Cairo for siege-guns, meanwhile driving in the enemy's pickets and investing the place.

He detached Colonel Plummer, of the Eleventh Missouri, with three regiments and a battery of rifled Parrott guns, to take possession of Point Pleasant, ten miles farther down. The order was admirably executed. Colonel Plummer planted his guns, threw up intrenchments, and astonished the Rebels by sending his shells into a steamboat which was passing up with supplies.

Commodore Hollins, commanding the Rebel gunboats, made all haste down to find out what was going on. He rained shot and shell all day long upon Colonel Plummer's batteries, but could not drive him from the position he had selected. He had made holes in the ground for his artillery, and the Rebel shot did him no injury. Hollins began at long range, then steamed up nearer to the batteries, but Plummer's artillerymen, by their excellent aim, compelled him to withdraw. The next day Hollins tried it again, but with no better success. The river was effectually blockaded. No Rebel transport could get up, and those which were at Island No. 10 and New Madrid could not get down, without being subjected to a heavy fire.

General Mackall determined to hold New Madrid, and reinforced the place from Island No. 10, till he had about nine thousand troops. On the 11th of March four siege-guns were sent to General Pope. He received them at sunset. Colonel Morgan's brigade was furnished with spades and intrenching tools. General Stanley's division was ordered under arms, to support Morgan. The force advanced towards the town at dark, drove in the Rebel pickets, secured a favorable position within eight hundred yards of the fort. The men worked all night, and in the morning had two breastworks thrown up, each eighteen feet thick, and five feet high, with a smaller breastwork, called a curtain, connecting the two. This curtain was nine hundred feet long, nine feet thick, and three feet high. On each side of the breastworks, thrown out like wings was a line of rifle-pits. Wooden platforms were placed behind the breastworks, and the guns all mounted by daylight. Colonel Bissell, of the engineers, managed it all. In thirty-four hours from the time he received the guns at Cairo, he had shipped them across the Mississippi River, loaded them on railroad cars, taken them to Sykestown, twenty miles, mounted them on carriages, then dragged them twenty miles farther, through almost impassable mud, and had them in position within eight hundred yards of the river! The work was done so quietly that the Rebel pickets did not mistrust what was going on. At daybreak they opened fire upon what they supposed was a Union rifle-pit, and were answered by a shell from a rifled thirty-two pounder.

It was a foggy morning. The air was still, and the deep thunder rolled far away along the wooded stream. It woke up the slumbering garrison. Commodore Hollins heard it, and immediately there was commotion among the Rebel gunboats. They came to New Madrid. Hollins placed them in position above the town to open fire. The fog lifted, and all the guns of the fleet and the forts began to play upon the breastworks. General Pope brought up his heavy field guns, and replied. He paid but little attention to the fort, but sent his shot and shell at the gunboats. Captain Mower, of the First United States artillery, commanded the batteries, and his fire was so accurate that the gunboats were obliged to take new positions. Shortly after the cannonade began, a shot from the fort struck one of Captain Mower's thirty-two pounders in the muzzle and disabled it; but he kept up his fire through the day, dismounting three guns in the lower fort and disabling two of the gunboats. Nearly all of the shells from the Rebel batteries fell harmlessly into the soft earth. There were very few of General Pope's men injured. They soon became accustomed to the business, and paid but little attention to the screaming of the shot and the explosions of the shells. They had many hearty laughs, as the shells which burst in the ground frequently spattered them with mud.

There was one soldier in one of the Ohio regiments who was usually profane and wicked; but he was deeply impressed with the fact that so few were injured by such a terrific fire, and at night said to his comrades, seriously: "Boys, there is no use denying it; God has watched over us to-day."

His comrades also noticed that he did not swear that night.

Just at night, General Paine's division made a demonstration towards the lower fort, driving in the enemy's pickets. General Paine advanced almost to the ditch in front of the fort. Preparations were made to hold the ground, but during the night there came up a terrific thunder-storm and hurricane, which stopped all operations.

The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio, and the Tenth and Sixteenth Illinois, were the grand guard for the night. They had been under fire all day. They had endured the strain upon their nerves, but through the long night-hours they stood in the drenching rain, beneath the sheets of lurid flame, looking with sleepless eyes towards the front, prepared to repel a sortie or challenge spies.

At daybreak there was no enemy in sight. The fort was deserted. A citizen of the town came out with a flag of truce. The General who had called upon his men in high-sounding words, the officer who was going to make New Madrid a Thermopylae, and himself a Leonidas in history,—the nine thousand infantry had gone! Two or three soldiers were found asleep. They rubbed their eyes and stared wildly when they were told that they were prisoners, that their comrades and commander had fled.

During the thunder-storm, the Rebel gunboats and steamers had taken the troops on board, and ferried them to the Tennessee shore near Island No. 10. They spiked their heavy guns, but Colonel Bissell's engineers were quickly at work, and in a few hours had the guns ready for use again.

The Rebels left an immense amount of corn, in bags, and a great quantity of ammunition. They tumbled their wagons into the river.

General Pope set his men to work, and before night the guns which had been pointed inland were wheeled the other way. He sent a messenger to Commodore Foote, with this despatch:—

"All right! River closed! No escape for the enemy by water."

All this was accomplished with the loss of seven killed and forty-three wounded. By these operations against New Madrid, and by the battle at Pea Ridge, in the southwestern part of the State, which was fought about the same time, the Rebels were driven from Missouri!



CHAPTER XI.

OPERATIONS AT ISLAND NUMBER TEN.

Commodore Foote, having repaired the gunboats disabled at Fort Donelson, sailed from Cairo the day that New Madrid fell into the hands of General Pope. He had seven gunboats and ten mortars, besides several tugs and transports. Colonel Buford, with fifteen hundred troops, accompanied the expedition.

The mortars were untried. They were the largest ever brought into use at that time, weighing nineteen thousand pounds, and throwing a shell thirteen inches in diameter. The accompanying diagram will perhaps give you an idea of their appearance. You see the mortar mounted on its carriage, or bed as it is called. The figures 1, 1 represent one cheek of the bed, a thick wrought-iron plate. The figures 2, 2 represent the heads of the bolts which connect the cheek in view to the one on the other side. The bed stands on thick timbers, represented by 3, and the timbers rest on heavy sleepers, 4. Figure 5 represents a thick strap of iron which clasps the trunion or axis of the mortar, and holds it in its place. This strap is held by two other straps, 6, 6, all iron, and very strong. The figure 7 represents what is called a bolster. You see it is in the shape of a wedge. It is used to raise or depress the muzzle of the mortar. The figure 8 represents what is called a quoin, and keeps the bolster in its place. The figure 9 represents one of the many bolts by which the whole is kept in place on the boat.



The boat is built like a raft, of thick timbers, laid crosswise and bolted firmly together. It is about thirty feet long and twelve wide, and has iron plates around its sides to screen the men from Rebel sharpshooters. The mortar is more than four feet in diameter. It is thicker than it is long. To fire a mortar accurately requires a good knowledge of mathematics, of the relations of curves to straight lines, for the shell is fired into the air at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. The gunner must calculate the distance from the mortar to the enemy in a straight line, and then elevate or lower the muzzle to drop his shell not too near, neither too far away. He must calculate the time it will take for the shell to describe the curve through the air. Then he must make his fuses of the right length to have the shell explode at the proper time, either high in the air, that its fragments may rain down on the encampment of the enemy, or close down to the ground among the men working the guns. It requires skill and a great deal of practice to do all this.

The mortar flotilla was commanded by Captain Henry E. Maynadier, assisted by Captain E. B. Pike of the engineers. There were four Masters of Ordnance, who commanded each four mortars. Each mortar-boat had a crew of fifteen men; three of them were Mississippi flatboatmen, who understood all about the river, the currents and the sand-bars.

Commodore Foote's flotilla consisted of the Benton, 16 guns, which was his flag-ship, covered all over with iron plates, and commanded by Captain Phelps; the Mound City, 13 guns, commanded by Captain Kelty; the Carondelet, 13 guns, Lieutenant Walke; the Cincinnati, 13 guns, Captain Stemble; the St. Louis, 13 guns, Captain Dove; the Louisville, 13 guns, Lieutenant Paulding; the Pittsburg, 13 guns, Lieutenant Thompson; the Conestoga, 9 guns, Lieutenant Blodgett; in all, 103 guns and 10 mortars. The Conestoga was used to guard the ammunition-boats, and took no part in the active operations. Commodore Foote had several small steam-tugs, which were used as tenders, to carry orders from boat to boat.

The Southern people thought that Island No. 10 could not be taken. On the 6th of March a newspaper at Memphis said:—

"For the enemy to get possession of Memphis and the Mississippi Valley would require an army of greater strength than Secretary Stanton can concentrate upon the banks of the Mississippi River. The gunboats in which they have so much confidence have proved their weakness. They cannot stand our guns of heavy calibre. The approach of the enemy by land to New Madrid induces us to believe that the flotilla is one grand humbug, and that it is not ready, and does not intend to descend the river. Foote, the commander of the Federal fleet, served his time under Commodore Hollins, and should he attempt to descend the river, Hollins will teach him that some things can be done as well as others."[25]

[Footnote 25: Memphis Argus.]

On Saturday, the 15th of March, the fleet approached the island. The clouds were thick and lowering. The rain pattered on the decks of the gunboats, the fog settled upon the river. As the boats swept round a point of land, the old river pilot, who was on the watch, who knew every crook, turn, sand-bar, and all the objects along the bank, sung out, "Boat ahead!"

The sailors scrambled to the portholes; Captain Phelps sprang from the cabin to the deck.

There she was, a steamer, just visible through the fog a mile ahead. It was the Grampus, owned by Captain Chester of the steamer Alps, who had two of the mortar-boats in tow. He belonged to Pittsburg, and used to carry coal to Memphis. When the war broke out the Rebels seized his steamboats and his coal-barges, and refused to pay him for the coal they had already purchased. The act roused all his ire. He was a tall, athletic man, and had followed the river thirty years. Although surrounded by enemies, he gave them plain words.

"You are a set of thieves and rascals! You are cowards, every one of you!" he shouted.

He took off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, bared his great brawny arms, dashed his hat upon the ground.

"Now come on! I'll fight every one of you, you infernal rascals! I'll whip you all! I challenge you to fight me! You call yourselves chivalrous people. You say you believe in fair play. If I whip, you shall give up my boats, but if I am beaten, you are welcome to them."

They laughed in his face, and said: "Blow away, old fellow. We have got your boats. Help yourself if you can."

A hot-headed secessionist cried out, "Hang the Yankee!"

The crowd hustled him about, but he had a few old friends, who took his part, and he succeeded in making his escape.

Captain Phelps looked a moment at the Grampus. He saw her wheels move. She was starting off.

"Out with the starboard gun! Give her a shot!"

Lieutenant Bishop runs his eye along the sights of the great eleven-inch gun, which has been loaded and run out of the porthole in a twinkling.

There is a flash. A great cloud puffs out into the fog, and the shot screams through the air and is lost to sight. We cannot see where it fell. Another—another. Boom!—boom!—boom!—from the Cincinnati and Carondelet. But the Grampus is light-heeled. The distance widens. You can hardly see her, and at last she vanishes like a ghost from sight.

We were not more than four or five miles from the head of the island. One by one the boats rounded to along the Kentucky shore. The sailors sprang upon the land, carrying out the strong warps, and fastening us to the trunks of the buttonwood-trees.

There was a clearing and a miserable log-hut near by. The family had fled, frightened by the cannonade. We found them cowering in the woods,—a man, his wife and daughter. The land all around them was exceedingly rich, but they were very poor. All they had to eat was hog and hominy. They had been told that the Union troops would rob them of all they had, which was not likely, because they had nothing worth stealing! They were trembling with fear, but when they found the soldiers and sailors well-behaved and peaceable, they forgot their terror.

The fog lifts at last, and we can see the white tents of the Rebels on the Tennessee shore. There are the batteries, with the cannon grim and black pointing up stream. Round the point of land is the island. A half-dozen steamboats lie in the stream below it. At times they steam up to the bend and then go back again,—wandering back and forth like rats in a cage. They cannot get past General Pope's guns at New Madrid. On the north side of the island is a great floating-battery of eight guns, which has been towed up from New Orleans. General Mackall has sunk a steamboat in a narrow part of the channel on the north side of the island, so that if Commodore Foote attempts to run the blockade he will be compelled to pass along the south channel, exposed to the fire of all the guns in the four batteries upon the Tennessee shore, as well as those upon the island.

Two of the mortar-boats were brought into position two miles from the Rebel batteries. We waited in a fever of expectation while Captain Maynadier was making ready, for thirteen-inch mortars had never been used in war. The largest used by the French and English in the bombardment of Sebastopol were much smaller.

There came a roar like thunder. It was not a sharp, piercing report, but a deep, heavy boom, which rolled along the mighty river, echoing and re-echoing from shore to shore,—a prolonged reverberation, heard fifty miles away. A keg of powder was burned in the single explosion. The shell rose in a beautiful curve, exploded five hundred feet high, and fell in fragments around the distant encampment.

There was a flash beneath the dark forest-trees near the encampment, a puff of white smoke, an answering roar, and a shot fell into the water a half-mile down stream from the mortars. The Rebels had accepted the challenge.

Sunday came. The boats having the mortars in tow dropped them along the Missouri shore. The gunboats swung into the stream. The Benton fired her rifled guns over the point of land at the Rebel steamboats below the island. There was a sudden commotion. They quickly disappeared down the river towards New Madrid, out of range. During the morning there was a deep booming from the direction of Point Pleasant. The Rebel gunboats were trying to drive Colonel Plummer from his position.

Ten o'clock came, the hour for divine service. The church flag was flung out on the flagstaff of the Benton, and all the commanders called their crews together for worship. I was on board the Pittsburg with Captain Thompson. The crew assembled on the upper deck. There were men from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, from the Eastern as well as the Western States. Some of them were scholars and teachers in Sabbath-schools at home. They were dressed in dark-blue, and each sailor appeared in his Sunday suit. A small table was brought up from the cabin, and the flag of our country spread upon it. A Bible was brought. We stood around the captain with uncovered heads, while he read the twenty-seventh Psalm. Beautiful and appropriate was that service:—

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

After the Psalm, the prayer, "Our Father which art in heaven."

How impressive! The uncovered group standing around the open Bible, and the low voices of a hundred men in prayer. On our right hand, looking down the mighty river, were the mortars, in play, jarring the earth with their heavy thunders. The shells were sweeping in graceful curves through the air. Upon our left hand, the Benton and Carondelet were covering themselves with white clouds, which slowly floated away over the woodlands, fragrant with the early buds and blossoms of spring. The Rebel batteries below us were flaming and smoking. Solid shot screamed past us, shells exploded above us. Away beyond the island, beyond the dark-green of the forest, rose the cloud of another bombardment, where Commodore Hollins was vainly endeavoring to drive Colonel Plummer from his position. So the prayer was mingled with the deep, wild thunders of the cannonade.

A light fog, like a thin veil, lay along the river. After service, we saw that strange and peculiar optical illusion called mirage, so often seen in deserts, where the thirsty traveller beholds lakes, and shady places, cities, towns, and ships. I was looking up stream, and saw, sweeping round the wooded point of land, something afloat. A boat or floating battery it seemed to be. There were chimneys, a flagstaff, a porthole. It was seemingly two hundred feet long, coming broadside towards us.

"Captain Thompson, see there!"

He looked at it, and jumped upon the pilot-house, scanned it over and over. The other officers raised their glasses.

"It looks like a floating battery!" said one.

"There is a porthole, certainly!" said another.

It came nearer. Its proportions increased.

"Pilot, put on steam! Head her up stream!" said Captain Thompson.

"Lieutenant, beat to quarters! Light up the magazine! We will see what she is made of."

There was activity on deck. The guns were run out, shot and shell were brought up. The boat moved up stream. Broadside upon us came the unknown craft.

Suddenly the illusion vanished. The monster three hundred feet long, changed to an old coal-barge. The chimneys became two timbers, the flagstaff a small stick of firewood. The fog, the currents of air, had produced the transformation. We had a hearty laugh over our preparations for an encounter with the enemy in our rear. It was an enemy more quickly disposed of than the one in front.

The Rebels in the upper battery waved a white flag. The firing ceased. Commodore Foote sent Lieutenant Bishop down with a tug and a white flag flying, to see what it meant. He approached the battery.

"Are we to understand that you wish to communicate with us?" he asked.

"No, sir," said an officer wearing a gold-laced coat.

"Then why do you display a white flag?"

"It is a mistake, sir. It is a signal-flag. I regret that it has deceived you."

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, sir."

The tug steams back to the Benton, the white flag is taken down, and the uproar begins again. Lieutenant Bishop made good use of his eyes. There were seven thirty-two-pounders and one heavy rifled gun in the upper battery.

Commodore Foote was not ready to begin the bombardment in earnest till Monday noon, March 17th.

The Benton, Cincinnati, and St. Louis dropped down stream, side by side, and came into position about a mile from the upper batteries. Anchors were dropped from the stern of each gunboat, that they might fight head on, using their heavy rifled guns. Their position was on the east side of the river. The Mound City and Carondelet took position near the west bank, just below the mortars. The boats were thus placed to bring a cross fire upon the upper Rebel battery.

"Pay no attention to the island, but direct your fire into the upper battery!" is the order.

A signal is raised upon the flag-ship. We do not understand the signification of the flag, but while we look at it the ten mortars open fire, one after another, in rapid succession. The gunboats follow. There are ten shells, thirteen inches in diameter, rising high in air. There are handfuls of smoke flecking the sky, and a prolonged, indescribable crashing, rolling, and rumbling. You have seen battle-pieces by the great painters; but the highest artistic skill cannot portray the scene. It is a vernal day, as beautiful as ever dawned. The gunboats are enveloped in flame and smoke. The unfolding clouds are slowly wafted away by the gentle breeze. Huge columns rise majestically from the mortars. A line of white—a thread-like tissue—spans the sky. It is the momentary and vanishing mark of the shell in the invisible air. There are little splashes in the stream, where the fragments of iron fall. There are pillars of water tossed upward in front of the earthwork, which break into spray, painted with rainbow hues by the bright sunshine. A round shot skips along the surface and pierces the embankment. Another just clears the parapet, and cuts down a tree beyond. The air is filled with sticks, timbers, branches of trees, and earth, as if a dozen thunderbolts had fallen upon the spot from a cloudless sky. There are explosions deep under ground, where the great shells have buried themselves in their downward flight. There are volumes of smoke which rise like the mists of a summer morning.

There are some brave fellows behind that breastwork. Amid this storm they come out from their shelter and load a gun. There it comes! A flash, a cloud, a hissing, a crash! The shot strikes the upper deck of the Benton, tears up the iron plates, breaks the thick timbers into kindlings, falls upon the lower deck, bounds up again to the beams above, and drops into Commodore Foote's writing-desk!

All around, from the gunboats, the mortars, from all the batteries, are flashes, clouds of smoke, and thunderings, which bring to mind the gorgeous imagery of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, descriptive of the scenes of the Last Judgment.

The firing ceased at sunset. The Benton was struck four times, and the Cincinnati once. No one was injured by these shots, but one of the guns of the St. Louis burst, killing two men instantly, and wounding thirteen.

When the bombardment was at its height, Commodore Foote received a letter from Cairo, containing the sad information that a beloved son had died suddenly. It was a sore bereavement, but it was no time for him to give way to grief, no time to think of his great affliction.

After the firing had ceased, I sat with him in the cabin of the Benton. There were tears upon his cheeks. He was thinking of his loss.

Were he living now, I should have no right to give the conversation I had with him, but he has gone to his reward, leaving us his bright example. These were his words, as I remember:—

"It is a terrible blow, but the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be His name. It is hard for me to bear, but no harder than it will be for the fathers of the noble men who were killed on the St. Louis. Poor fellows! I feel bad for the wounded."

He called the orderly who stood outside the cabin.

"Orderly, tell the surgeon that I want to see him."

The surgeon came in.

"Surgeon, I wish you to do everything you can for those poor fellows on the St. Louis. Don't omit anything that will contribute to their comfort."

"It shall be done, sir," said the surgeon, as he left the cabin.

"Poor fellows! I must see them myself. It is a great deal worse to have a gun explode than to have the men wounded by the enemy's shot, for they lose confidence. I have protested again and again to the Department against using these old thirty-two-pounders, which have been weakened by being rifled; but I had to take them or none. I had to pick them up wherever I could find them. I have tried my best to get the fleet in good trim, and it is too bad to have the men slaughtered in this way. I shall try to do my duty. The country needs the services of every man. We shall have a long war. I would like to rest, and have a little breathing spell, but I shall not ask for it. I shall try to do my duty to my country and to God. He is leading this nation in a way we know not of. My faith is unshaken in Him. He will bring us out of all trouble at last."

Thus, in the hour of battle, while attending to his duties, while bearing up under the intelligence that a beloved son had died, he talked calmly, cheerfully, and hopefully of the future, and manifested the care and tenderness of a father for the wounded.

Although the gunboats ceased firing at sunset, the mortars were in play all night. It was beautiful to see the great flash, illuminating all the landscape, the white cloud rolling upward and outward, unfolding, expanding, spreading over the wide river, and the bright spark rising high in the air, turning with the revolving shell, reaching its altitude and sailing straight along the arch of the parabola, then descending with increasing rapidity, ending in a bright flash, and an explosion which echoes and re-echoes far away. The next day I went with Captain Maynadier across the point to reconnoitre the batteries on the island and watch the explosions of the shells. We passed a deserted farm-house, and saw a squad of Colonel Buford's soldiers running down pigs and chickens. Crossing a creek upon a corduroy bridge, we came to a second squad. One was playing a violin, and several were dancing; they were as happy as larks. We stood upon the bank of the river opposite the island. Before us was the floating battery, which was formerly the New Orleans dry-dock. It mounted eight guns. There were four batteries on the Tennessee shore and several on the island. We could see the artillerists at their guns. They saw us, and sent a shell whizzing over our heads, which struck in a cornfield, and ploughed a deep furrow for the farmer owning it. We went where they could not see us, and mounted a fence to watch the effect of the mortar-firing. It was interesting to sit there and hear the great shells sail through the air five hundred feet above us. It was like the sound of far-off, invisible machinery, turning with a constant motion, not the sharp, shrill whistle of a rifled-bolt, but a whirr and roll, like that which you may sometimes hear above the clouds in a thunder-storm. One shell fell like a millstone into the river. The water did not extinguish the fuse, and a great column was thrown up fifty feet high. Another buried itself deep in the ground before it burst, and excavated a great hole. I learned, after the place surrendered, that one fell through a tent where several officers were sitting, playing cards, and that the next moment the tent, furniture, officers, and fifty cartloads of earth were sailing through the air! None of them were wounded, but they were bruised, wrenched, and their nice clothes covered with dirt.

At night there was a storm, with vivid lightning and heavy thunder. The mortars kept up their fire. It was a sublime spectacle,—earth against heaven, but the artillery of the skies was the best.

You would have given a great deal, I dare say, to have seen all this; but there is another side to the story. Can you eat dirt? Can you eat grease in all its forms,—baked, boiled, fried, simmered? Can you bear variegated butter, variable in taste and smell? Can you get along with ham, hash, and beans for breakfast, beans, hash, and ham for dinner, and hash, ham, and beans for supper, week after week, with fat in all its forms, with cakes solid enough for grape-shot to fire at the Rebels, with blackest coffee and the nearest available cow fifty miles off?—with sour molasses, greasy griddle-cakes, with Mississippi water thick with the filth of the great valley of the West, with slime from the Cincinnati slaughter-houses, sweepings from the streets, slops from the steamboats, with all the miasma and mould of the forests? The fairest countenance soon changes to a milk and molasses color, and energy lags, and strength becomes weakness under such living.

In boyhood, at the sound of a bugle, a drum, or the roar of a cannon, how leaped the blood through my veins! But it becomes an old story. I was quartered within a stone's-throw of the mortars, which fired all night long, and was not disturbed by the explosions. One becomes indifferent to everything. You get tired of watching the cannonade, and become so accustomed to the fire of the enemy, that after a while you do not heed a shot that ploughs up the dirt or strikes the water near at hand.

General Pope sent word, that, if he had transports and a gunboat, he could cross to the Tennessee shore and take the batteries in the rear. The river was very high and the country overflowed. Near New Madrid there is a bayou, which is the outlet of a small lake. It was determined to cut a canal through the forest to the lake. Colonel Bissell with his regiment of engineers went to work. Four steamboats were fitted up, two barges, with cannon on board, were taken in tow, and the expedition started. They sailed over a cornfield, where the tall stalks were waving and swinging in the water, steamed over fences, and came to the woods. There were great trees, which must be cut away. The engineers rigged their saws for work under water. The path was fifty feet wide and the trees were cut off four feet below the surface. In eight days they cut their way to New Madrid, a distance of twelve miles. In one place they cut off seventy-five trees, all of which were more than two feet in diameter.

While this was doing, Commodore Foote kept the Rebels awake by a regular and continuous bombardment, mainly upon the upper battery. He determined to capture it.

On the night of the 1st of April, an armed expedition is fitted out from the squadron and the land forces. There are five boats, manned by picked crews from the gunboats, carrying forty men of the Forty-second Illinois, under command of Colonel Roberts. The party numbers one hundred. It is a wild night. The wind blows a gale from the south, swaying the great trees of the forest and tossing up waves upon the swift-running river, which boils, bubbles, dashes, and foams in the storm. There are vivid lightning flashes, growls and rolls of deep, heavy thunder. The boats cast off from the fleet. The oars have been muffled. No words are spoken. The soldiers sit, each with his gun half raised to his shoulder and his hand upon the lock. The spray dashes over them, sheets of flame flash in their faces. All the landscape for a moment is as light as day, and then all is pitch darkness.

Onward faster and faster they sweep, driven by the strong arms of the rowers and the current. It is a stealthy, noiseless, rapid, tempestuous, dangerous, daring enterprise. They are tossed by the waves, but they glide with the rapidity of a race-horse. Two sentinels stand upon the parapet. A few rods in rear is a regiment of Rebels. A broad lightning-flash reveals the descending boats. The sentinels fire their guns, but they are mimic flashes.

"Lay in quick!" shouts Colonel Roberts.

The oars bend in the row-locks. A stroke, and they are beside the parapet, climbing up the slippery bank. The sentinels run. There is a rattling fire from pistols and muskets; but the shots fall harmlessly in the forest. A moment,—and all the guns are spiked. There is a commotion in the woods. The sleeping Rebels are astir. They do not rally to drive back the invaders, but are fleeing in the darkness.

Colonel Roberts walks from gun to gun, to see if the work has been effectually accomplished.

"All right! All aboard! Push off!" He is the last to leave. The boats head up-stream. The rowers bend to their oars. In a minute they are beyond musket range. Their work is accomplished, and there will be no more firing from that six-gun battery. Now the gunboats can move nearer and begin their work upon the remaining batteries.

In the morning General Mackall was much chagrined when he found out what had been done by the Yankees. It is said he used some hard words. He flew into a rage, and grew red in the face, which did not help the matter in the least.

At midnight, on the night of the 3d of April, the Carondelet, commanded by Captain Walke, ran past the batteries and the island. It was a dark, stormy night. But the sentinels saw her coming down in the darkness, and every cannon was brought to bear upon the vessel. Shells burst around her; solid shot, grape, and canister swept over her; but she was not struck, although exposed to the terrific fire over thirty minutes. We who remained with the fleet waited in breathless suspense to hear her three signal-guns, which were to be fired if she passed safely. They came,—boom! boom! boom! She was safe. We cheered, hurrahed, and lay down to sleep, to dream it all over again.

The Carondelet reached New Madrid. The soldiers of General Pope's army rushed to the bank, and gave way to the wildest enthusiasm.

"Three cheers for the Carondelet!" shouted one. Their caps went into the air, they swung their arms, and danced in ecstasy.

"Three more for Commodore Foote!"

"Now three more for Captain Walke!"

"Three more for the Navy!"

"Three more for the Cabin-Boy!"

So they went on cheering and shouting for everything till they were hoarse.

The next day the Carondelet went down the river as far as Point Pleasant, had an engagement with several batteries on the Tennessee shore, silenced them, landed and spiked the guns. The next night the Pittsburg, Captain Thompson ran the blockade safely. The four steamboats which had worked their way through the canal were all ready. The Tenth, Sixteenth, Twenty-first, and Fifty-first Illinois regiments were taken on board. The Rebels had a heavy battery on the other side of the river, at a place called Watson's Landing. The Carondelet and Pittsburg went ahead, opened fire, and silenced it. The steamers advanced. The Rebels saw the preparations and fled towards Tiptonville. By midnight General Pope had all his troops on the Tennessee shore. General Paine, commanding those in advance, pushed on towards Tiptonville and took possession of all the deserted camps. The Rebels had fled in confusion, casting away their guns, knapsacks, clothing, everything, to escape. When the troops in the batteries heard what was going on in their rear, they also fled towards Tiptonville. General Pope came up with them the next morning and captured all who had not escaped. General Mackall and two other generals, nearly seven thousand prisoners, one hundred and twenty-three pieces of artillery, seven thousand small arms, and an immense amount of ammunition and supplies fell into the hands of General Pope. The troops on the island, finding that they were deserted, surrendered to Commodore Foote. It was almost a bloodless victory, but one of great importance, opening the Mississippi River down to Fort Pillow, forty miles above Memphis.

When the State of Tennessee was carried out of the Union by the treachery of Governor Harris, and other men in high official position, there were some men in the western part of the State, as well as the eastern, who remained loyal. Those who were suspected of loving the Union suffered terrible persecutions. Among them was a citizen of Purdy. His name was Hurst. He told me the story of his wrongs.

Soon after the State seceded, he was visited by a number of men who called themselves a vigilance committee. They were fierce-looking fellows, armed with pistols and knives.

"We want you to come with us," said the leader of the gang.

"What do you want of me?"

"We will let you know when you get there."

Mr. Hurst knew that they wanted to take him before their own self-elected court, and went without hesitation.

He was questioned, but would not commit himself by any positive answer, and, as they could not prove he was in favor of the Union, they allowed him to go home.

But the ruffians were not satisfied, and in a few days had him up again. They tried hard to prove that he was opposed to the Confederacy, but he had kept about his own business, had refrained from talking, and they could not convict him. They allowed him to go for several months. One day, in September, 1861, while at work in his field, the ruffians came again. Their leader had a red face, bloated with whiskey, chewed tobacco, had two pistols in his belt, and a long knife in a sheath. He wore a slouched hat, and was a villanous-looking fellow.

"Come, you scoundrel. We will fix you this time," said the captain of the band.

"What do you want of me?"

"You are an Abolitionist,—a Yankee spy. That's what you are. We'll make you stretch hemp this time," they said, seizing him and marching him into town, with their pistols cocked. Six or eight of them were ready to shoot him if he should attempt to escape. They called all who did not go for secession Abolitionists.

"I am not an Abolitionist," said Hurst.

"None of your sass. We know what you are, and if you don't hold your jaw, we will stop it for you."

They marched him through the village, and the whole population turned out to see him. He was taken to the jail, and thrust into a cage, so small that he could not lie down,—a vile, filthy place. The jailer was a brutal, hard-hearted man,—a rabid secessionist. He chuckled with delight when he turned the key on Hurst. He was kept in the cage two days, and then taken to Nashville, where he was tried before a military court.

He was charged with being opposed to the Confederacy, and in favor of the Union; also that he was a spy.

Among his accusers were some secessionists who owed him a grudge. They invented lies, swore that Hurst was in communication with the Yankees, and gave them information of all the movements of the Rebels. This was months before General Grant attacked Donelson, and Hurst was two hundred miles from the nearest post of the Union army; but such was the hatred of the secessionists, and they were so bloodthirsty, that they were ready to hang all who did not hurrah for Jeff Davis and the Confederacy. He was far from home. He was not permitted to have any witnesses, and his own word was of no value in their estimation. He was condemned to be hung as a spy.

They took him out to a tree, put the rope round his neck, when some of his old acquaintances, who were not quite so hardened as his accusers, said that the evidence was not sufficient to hang him. They took him back to the court. He came under heavy bonds to report himself often and prove his whereabouts.

He was released, and went home, but his old enemies followed him, and dogged him day and night.

He discovered that he was to be again arrested. He told his boy to harness his horse quick, and take him to a side street, near an apothecary's shop. He looked out of the window, and saw a file of soldiers approaching to arrest him. He slipped out of the back door, gained the street, and walked boldly through the town.

"There he goes!" said a fellow smoking a cigar on the steps of the hotel. A crowd rushed out of the bar-room to see him. They knew that he was to be arrested; they expected he would be hung.

As he walked into the apothecary's shop, he saw his boy coming down the alley with his horse. He did not dare to go down the alley to meet him, for the crowd would see his attempt to escape. They saw him enter the door, and rushed across the street to see the fun when the soldiers should arrive.

"Come in here," he said to the apothecary, as he stepped into a room in the rear, from which a door opened into the alley.

The apothecary followed him, wondering what he wanted.

Hurst drew a pistol from his pocket, and held it to the head of the apothecary, and said, "If you make any noise, I will blow your brains out!" He opened the door, and beckoned to his boy, who rode up. "I have four friends who are aiding me to escape," said he. "They will be the death of you if you give the alarm; but if you remain quiet, they will not harm you." He sprang upon his horse, galloped down the alley, and was gone.

The apothecary dared not give the alarm, and was very busy about his business when the soldiers came to arrest Hurst.

When they found he was gone, they started in pursuit, but were not able to overtake him. He made his way to the woods, and finally reached the Union army.

When General Lewis Wallace's division entered the town of Purdy, Hurst accompanied it. He asked General Wallace for a guard, to make an important arrest. His request was granted. He went to the jail, found the jailer, and demanded his keys. The jailer gave them up. Hurst unlocked the cage, and there he found a half-starved slave, who had been put in for no crime, but to keep him from running away to the Union army.

He released the slave and told him to go where he pleased. The colored man could hardly stand, he was so cramped and exhausted by his long confinement and want of food.

"Step in there!" said Hurst to the jailer. The jailer shrunk back.

"Step in there, you scoundrel!" said Hurst, more determinedly.

"You don't mean to put me in there, Hurst!" said the jailer, almost whining.

"Step in, I say, or I'll let daylight through you!" He seized a gun from one of the soldiers and pricked the jailer a little with the bayonet, to let him know that he was in earnest. The other soldiers fenced him round with a glittering line of sharp steel points. They chuckled, and thought it capital fun.

The jailer stepped in, whining and begging, and saying that he never meant to harm Hurst. Having got him inside, Hurst locked the door, put the key in his pocket, dismissed the soldiers, and went away. He was gone two days, and when he returned, had lost the key!

The cage was built of oak logs, and bolted so firmly with iron that it took half a day, with axes, to get the jailer out. He never troubled Hurst again, who joined the Union army as a scout, and did excellent service, for he was well acquainted with the country.

While operations were going on at Island No. 10, I went up the river one day, and visited the hospitals at Mound City and Paducah. In one of the wards a surgeon was dressing the arm of a brave young Irishman, who was very jolly. His arm had been torn by a piece of shell, but he did not mind it much. The surgeon was performing an operation which was painful.

"Does it hurt, Patrick?" he asked.

"Ah! Doctor, ye nadent ask such a question as that; but if ye'll just give me a good drink of whiskey, ye may squeeze it all day long."

He made up such a comical face that the sick and wounded all around him laughed. It did them good, and Patrick knew it, and so, in the kindness of his heart, he kept on making up faces, and never uttered a word of complaint.

"He is a first-rate patient," said the surgeon as we passed along. "He keeps up good spirits all the time, and that helps all the rest."

In another part of the hospital was one of Birges's sharpshooters, who did such excellent service, you remember, at Fort Donelson. He was a brave and noble boy. There were several kind ladies taking care of the sick. Their presence was like sunshine. Wherever they walked the eyes of the sufferers followed them. One of these ladies thus speaks of little Frankie Bragg:—

"Many will remember him; the boy of fifteen, who fought valiantly at Donelson,—one of the bravest of Birges's sharpshooters, and whose answer to my questioning in regard to joining the army was so well worthy of record.

"'I joined, because I was so young and strong, and because life would be worth nothing to me unless I offered it for my country!'"[26]

[Footnote 26: Hospital Incidents, New York Post, October 22, 1863.]

How noble! There are many strong men who have done nothing for their country, and there are some who enjoy all the blessings of a good government, who are willing to see it destroyed rather than lift a finger to save it. Their names shall go out in oblivion, but little Frankie Bragg shall live forever! His body lies in the hospital ground at Paducah, but the pure patriotism which animated him, and the words he uttered, will never die!

The good lady who took care of him writes:—

"I saw him die. I can never forget the pleading gaze of his violet eyes, the brow from which ringlets of light-brown hair were swept by strange fingers bathed in the death-dew, the desire for some one to care for him, some one to love him in his last hours. I came to his side, and he clasped my hand in his own, fast growing cold and stiff.

"'O, I am going to die, and there is no one to love me,' he said. 'I did not think I was going to die till now; but it can't last long. If my sisters were only here; but I have no friends near me now, and it is so hard!'

"'Frankie,' I said, 'I know it is hard to be away from your relatives, but you are not friendless; I am your friend. Mrs. S—— and the kind Doctor are your friends, and we will all take care of you. More than this, God is your friend, and he is nearer to you now than either of us can get. Trust him, my boy. He will help you.'

"A faint smile passed over the pale sufferer's features.

"'O, do you think he will?' he asked.

"Then, as he held my hands closer, he turned his face more fully toward me, and said: 'My mother taught me to pray when I was a very little boy, and I never forgot it. I have always said my prayers every day, and tried not to be bad. Do you think God heard me always?'

"'Yes, most assuredly. Did he not promise, in his good Book, from which your mother taught you, that he would always hear the prayers of his children? Ask, and ye shall receive. Don't you remember this? One of the worst things we can do is to doubt God's truth. He has promised, and he will fulfil. Don't you feel so, Frankie?'

"He hesitated a moment, and then answered, slowly: 'Yes, I do believe it. I am not afraid to die, but I want somebody to love me.'

"The old cry for love, the strong yearning for the sympathy of kindred hearts. It would not be put down.

"'Frankie, I love you. Poor boy! you shall not be left alone. Is not this some comfort to you?'

"'Do you love me? Will you stay with me, and not leave me?'

"'I will not leave you. Be comforted, I will stay as long as you wish.'

"I kissed the pale forehead as if it had been that of my own child. A glad light flashed over his face.

"'O, kiss me again; that was given like my sister. Mrs. S——, won't you kiss me, too? I don't think it will be so hard to die, if you will both love me.'

"It did not last long. With his face nestled against mine, and his large blue eyes fixed in perfect composure upon me to the last moment, he breathed out his life."

So he died for his country. He sleeps on the banks of the beautiful Ohio. Men labor hard for riches, honor, and fame, but few, when life is over, will leave a nobler record than this young Christian patriot.



CHAPTER XII.

FROM FORT PILLOW TO MEMPHIS.

On the 6th of May, 1861, the Legislature of Tennessee, in secret session, voted that the State should secede from the Union. The next day, Governor Harris appointed three Commissioners to meet Mr. Hilliard, of Alabama, who had been sent by Jefferson Davis to make a league with the State. These Commissioners agreed that all the troops of the State should be under the control of the President of the Confederacy. All of the public property and naval stores and munitions of war were also turned over to the Confederacy. The people had nothing to do about it. The conspirators did not dare to trust the matter to them, for a great many persons in East Tennessee were ardently attached to the Union. In Western Tennessee, along the Mississippi, nearly all of the people, on the other hand, were in favor of secession.

At Memphis they were very wild and fierce. Union men were mobbed, tarred and feathered, ridden on rails, had their heads shaved, were robbed, knocked down, and warned to leave the place or be hung. One man was headed up in a hogshead, and rolled into the river, because he stood up for the Union! Memphis was a hotbed of secessionists; it was almost as bad as Charleston.

A Memphis newspaper, of the 6th of May, said:—

"Tennessee is disenthralled at last. Freedom has again crowned her with a fresh and fadeless wreath. She will do her entire duty. Great sacrifices are demanded of her, and they will be cheerfully made. Her blood and treasure are offered without stint at the shrine of Southern freedom. She counts not the cost at which independence may be bought. The gallant volunteer State of the South, her brave sons, now rushing to the standard of the Southern Confederacy, will sustain, by their unflinching valor and deathless devotion, her ancient renown achieved on so many battle-fields.

"In fact, our entire people—men, women, and children—have engaged in this fight, and are animated by the single heroic and indomitable resolve to perish rather than submit to the despicable invader now threatening us with subjugation. They will ratify the ordinance of secession amid the smoke and carnage of battle; they will write out their indorsement of it with the blood of their foe; they will enforce it at the point of the bayonet and sword.

"Welcome, thrice welcome, glorious Tennessee, to the thriving family of Southern Confederate States!"[27]

[Footnote 27: Memphis Avalanche.]

On the same day the citizens of Memphis tore down the Stars and Stripes from its staff upon the Court-House, formed a procession, and with a band of music bore the flag, like a corpse, to a pit, and buried it in mock solemnity. They went into the public square, where stands the statue of General Jackson, and chiselled from its pedestal his memorable words: "The Federal Union,—it must be preserved." They went to the river-bank, and seized all the steamboats they could lay their hands upon belonging to Northern men.

They resolved to build a fleet of gunboats, which would ascend the river to St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg, and compel the people of those cities to pay tribute, for the privilege of navigating the river to the Gulf.

The entire population engaged in the enterprise. The ladies held fairs and gave their jewelry. The citizens organized themselves into a gunboat association. When the boats were launched, the ladies, with appropriate ceremonies, dedicated them to the Confederacy. They urged their husbands, brothers, sons, and friends to enlist in the service, and the young man who hesitated received presents of hoop-skirts, petticoats, and other articles of female wearing apparel.

Eight gunboats were built. Commodore Hollins, as you have seen, commanded them. He attempted to drive back General Pope at New Madrid, but failed. He went to New Orleans, and Captain Montgomery was placed in command.

When Commodore Foote and General Pope took Island No. 10, those that escaped of the Rebels fell back to Fort Pillow, about forty miles above Memphis. It was a strong position, and Commodore Foote made but little effort to take it, but waited for the advance of General Halleck's army upon Corinth. While thus waiting, one foggy morning, several of the Rebel gunboats made a sudden attack upon the Cincinnati, and nearly disabled her before they were beaten back. Meanwhile, Commodore Foote, finding that his wound, received at Donelson, was growing worse, was recalled by the Secretary of the Navy, and Commodore Charles Henry Davis, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was placed in command.

Besides the gunboats on the Mississippi, was Colonel Ellet's fleet of rams,—nine in all. They were old steamboats, with oaken bulwarks three feet thick, to protect the boilers and engines. Their bows had been strengthened with stout timbers and iron bolts, and they had iron prows projecting under water. They carried no cannon, but were manned by sharpshooters. There were loop-holes through the timbers for the riflemen. The pilot-house was protected by iron plates. They joined the fleet at Fort Pillow.

The river is very narrow in front of the fort,—not more than a third of its usual width. It makes a sharp bend. The channel is deep, and the current rushes by like a mill-race. The Tennessee shore was lined with batteries on the bluff, which made it a place much stronger than Columbus or Island No. 10. But when General Beauregard was forced to evacuate Corinth, the Rebels were also compelled to leave Fort Pillow. For two or three days before the evacuation, they kept up a heavy fire upon the fleet.